


Charlie Weasley

by freyjawriter24



Series: The Weasleys [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aromantic Charlie Weasley, Asexual Charlie Weasley, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 05:42:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7347469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freyjawriter24/pseuds/freyjawriter24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He's more interested in dragons than women" - J.K. Rowling</p>
<p>Charlie Weasley knew he was different. He just didn't have the words to explain it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charlie Weasley

Charlie Weasley knew, when he was fairly young, that he was different.

It wasn’t the lack of a girlfriend, that he would occasionally be teased for, that told him. It was his lack of _interest_ in one.

For much of his childhood, it didn’t matter. His family was so busy, his father with work, his mother with the babies, both of them and all their family and friends with the war. When he was in the younger years of school, no one asked him about it. It was only once they started revising for their OWLs it really became an issue.

One or two people mentioned it, just as an aside to a conversation – “Do you have a girlfriend, Charlie? Have you _ever_ had one?”. Or “So, who do you like?”, and when he shook his head and shrugged, “Oh, come on, there _must_ be _some_ one!”. One of his close friends asked if he was gay, in hushed tones, away from everyone else. Charlie frowned and said no, it wasn’t that, he just wasn’t interested. But everyone else was, and he was singled out for it, so he knew something was different.

Bill never mentioned it, but Percy asked once, and walked off frowning when Charlie said he didn’t really think that way. The twins, for all the joking and pranking they were famous for, were the nicest about it, and unlike his friends they never teased him for not having kissed anyone.

It was only after the third time someone said “Don’t worry, you wouldn’t understand” when talking about a relationship that something clicked. He _didn’t_ understand. Why they wanted a relationship like that, why they wanted anything physically intimate with someone, why they wanted a romance. He _didn’t_ understand the way his male friends would stare at the older female students in the corridor, he’d never felt the butterflies Dora had told him about, he wasn’t interested in sneaking away with another student to kiss or make out or worse. He didn’t get it.

The next time he was in the library, once he’d picked up the books he needed for his Charms homework and a new book on dragons, he found himself drifting from shelf to shelf, searching for something, _anything_ , that would offer him what he wanted. His eyes scanned books titles, flitted over section names, but nothing appeared.

_Maybe it’s just me_ , he thought. _Only me._ The word _broken_ floated into his head time and again, but with every letter from home, every rush of wind when he flew, every dragon book he read, every experience of love and joy in his life he pushed the word away, replacing it gently with _different_. That was nicer; less painful, less concerning.

Charlie buried himself in his work, in his love for dragons, using it as an escape route. He knew he was never going to have what everyone else was – a partner, a lover, children of his own. But he wasn’t sure he wanted it, either.

Working out in Romania, no one seemed to care. A few of the people he worked with had families of their own, who they visited whenever they could, but no one questioned the fact that he didn’t. He could focus entirely on dragons, and hide the fact that he knew he was different, because nobody minded.

This is a world in which masculinity is tied to sex, and yet no one questions your masculinity when you work with dragons for a living. Charlie didn’t know whether this was strange or not, but in the distancing of himself from everything back home, he had time to reflect on his personal feelings. He knew he was male, he felt male, he looked male, he was happy with himself in that respect. But while back home he was told – not in so many words, but still told nonetheless – that you weren’t truly male until you’d had sex. Yet here, out in the wilds of Romania, out in dragon country where everyone could do what they liked, where he had his dream job, you didn’t need to have sex, or want it, to be male.

And he didn’t have the other feelings, either. Not the feelings that his muggleborn friend and co-worker Sasha seemed to have for her girlfriend, not the feelings his old boss Arrash seemed to have for his wife, not the feelings that Ginny had told him she thought she might have for Harry, though she wasn’t sure. He was honest with his little sister when she told him that – _I’m sorry, Gin, but I don’t really know either. I don’t think that’s how my mind works. You could ask Bill? Or maybe Mum. I’m sorry I can’t help, but you can still talk to me about it if you want._

But Charlie Weasley had no words for how he felt. Wizards did not write textbooks on different types of sexuality and romantic attraction, and if they did he wasn’t sure they would have them in the library near where he lived – that only had books on dragons; their breeds, native terrain, feeding habits, training abilities, historical uses.

It wasn’t until years later, when his siblings had children, who were growing up so fast, that Charlie was introduced to the muggle Internet. He’d heard of it, of course, but magic and dragons don’t mix with muggle technology, so he’d never experienced it himself. Little Rose showed him how to make a blog, James laughed and showed him all the funny websites to look at and which joke sites to follow. Hermione was the one who slyly pointed him in the direction of a blog that explored definitions of attraction. And then it clicked.

When Charlie Weasley explained to his parents, awkward and shuffling, that he identified as aromantic and asexual, they didn’t know what he meant. So he told them the definitions of the terms, and apologised for probably not ever being able to give them grandchildren. Molly rolled her eyes and Arthur let out an audible sigh of relief.

“Well, for goodness sake, Charlie! I thought you were going to say you had some terminal disease or something! We knew that already!” Charlie met his mother’s warm eyes and kind smile, and realised she didn’t mind. Molly opened her arms and gave him the biggest, tightest hug they’d shared since he was a child.

Arthur smiled fondly at them, and jokingly noted that they weren’t exactly short on grandchildren. Charlie released himself from his mother, grinned at his father, and the two men hugged, Arthur patting his son softly on the back.

They threw a small coming-out party a week later – ‘small’ meaning ‘family and Teddy only’, because if they started adding on friends and co-workers and everyone else, there’d be a whole city’s worth of people there. Bill hugged him. Ginny reached up and kissed the top of his head. Ron gave him a meaningful squeeze and pat on the back. Even Percy shook his hand, grinning widely. George made confetti fly everywhere, green and purple, and kept high-fiving him all night.

It was there that Victoire presented Charlie with two beautiful sketches of dragons, coloured in by Hugo at Lily’s suggestion, one in greens and greys, one grey, black, white and purple.

And it was there that he realised – deep down he supposed he knew it already, but this was final confirmation – that he wasn’t broken or wrong or weird, it wasn’t a bad thing that he didn’t want children, and it didn’t matter that he would never have a family of his own. It wasn’t strange to not be attracted to people sexually or romantically, it didn’t mean he would have an unhappy or unfulfilled life. Because his family was right here, all around him, giving him cake and waving little flags Hermione and Fleur had conjured, telling him they loved him. He was living as who he wanted to be and everyone was perfectly happy with that, most of all himself.

And that was all he needed.


End file.
